Ed Greenwood: Cloak of Shadows

"Well? Ye got that grand blade out and waved it about, lad. Aren't ye going to chase yonder scuttlers and do some carving to show thy manhood and deadly prowess?"

"No," Itharr replied brightly, and urged his mount ahead into the ruins. He tossed his grand blade into the air as he went, let it flash end over end up into the sunset, and then deftly caught it and sheathed it without slowing in his saddle or looking back.

Elminster's sniff was both loud and eloquent. Sharantyr hid a smile behind her own raised blade as Belkram and Itharr dismounted, tossed their reins over branches to serve as tethers for a few breaths, and jogged ahead into the shadows amid the stones.

The Old Mage watched them scramble and peer alertly about for a breath or two, then he turned in his saddle to fix Sharantyr with one clear blue eye. "Well, lass?"

Sharantyr raised an eyebrow. "As pouting maidens are wont to say," she replied, "'Well, what?'"

The wizard's stare became more forbidding. "What foolishness are ye going to favor us all with?"

Sharantyr smiled broadly. "Ah. Yes. Guarding you, actually." She waggled her drawn sword so the sun glimmered on one edge and then the other.

Elminster snorted. "Unnecessary folly, indeed. Why not put that steel away before ye hurt thyself with it?"

Sharantyr shrugged, more laughter in her eyes than in her face. "When Belk and Ith say the keep's safe, perhaps. We can talk about it again then… after I've told you how to cast a few spells."

"All right, all right, lass," Elminster said gruffly. "Point taken. Lash me with that pretty tongue o' thine later, eh? And put the sword away for now. Just do it."

Sharantyr gave him a puzzled frown as he vaulted from his saddle with sudden speed, sending his old dapple gray into a startled, snorting little dance. As she leaned forward to catch at its reins, the Old Mage dodged quickly past its head, snatched at her boot, and expertly pitched her backward off her horse.

Astonished, Sharantyr joined him on the ground, hooves flashing in front of her nose as both mounts decided that the shadows and stones ahead offered quieter grazing than the company of falling humans. She clutched at her sword to keep hold of it and opened her mouth to protest, but Elminster had taken two long strides to one side, away from her.

"Well, mageling?" he bellowed, staring back along their trail with blue fire in his eyes. He raised his hands in a deliberately flippant, showy gesture, and spoke a grand word.

Rolling up and staring hard, Sharantyr had a brief glimpse of a black-robed wizard standing on air amid the trees, excitement and fear on his face as his hands flicked and flashed in intricate spellcasting. She couldn't escape the impression that his fast-speaking mouth was sliding down into shapelessness. Suddenly, eight balls of bright flame erupted out of empty air and roared toward her and Elminster, drawing apart slightly as they came.

Sharantyr stared at the flaming death she knew she could not escape, heard the two young Harpers shout in alarm from the ruined castle behind her, and swallowed.

Is this how swiftly and easily death reaches out to take us all?

Daggerdale, Kythorn 15

Sharantyr watched helplessly as flaming death roared down upon the Old Mage. Long ago the spell had been dubbed a 'meteor swarm,' castle-rending magic only the mightiest mages could wield. And the wizard who'd hurled it looked so young.

A Zhentarim? But all time for thinking was gone. She was going to die. Sharantyr looked at Elminster as the roar of the rolling flames grew louder around them.

The Old Mage was standing calmly, watching the racing fireballs. As Sharantyr looked at him, his eyes narrowed for a moment and he made the briefest of gestures with two fingers. Little wheels of lightning were suddenly spinning in midair, in the path of the howling swarm of fast-growing fireballs.

The lightnings blazed into sudden blinding brightness as the flames flashed through them, but sliced apart the blazing balls, drawing out their fury. The rush of stolen spell energy made the spinning lightnings moan and turn all the faster. Beyond them, eight failing, flickering tongues of flame reached for the unmoving, watching Old Mage… and fell away into nothingness, spent.

Elminster raised another finger imperiously, and the whirling lightnings raced away from him, heading for the mage in the trees.

The young mage cast another spell with desperate speed, hissing and stammering words in clumsy haste. A brief rain of green lances appeared in the air, slicing down at Elminster's crackling pinwheels of captive fire and lightning, but were shattered and absorbed without pause. The lightnings flashed on.

The wizard shouted something desperately but hadn't time to do more before the lightnings struck him.

Elminster leaned forward to watch with mild, academic interest.

Sharantyr had time to shiver at that as she turned to watch what befell their foe.

Trees cracked in the heat, hissed out all their stored moisture, and fell, smoking, as the writhing mage spun in their midst, small snarling bolts of lightning leaping around his body and scattering bright sparks where they touched.

He howled in agony, arching his torso, limbs splayed. Sharantyr stared, fascinated, as his arms grew, darkening and broadening into batlike wings.

Elminster uttered a satisfied hum and followed it with four quick, sliding words. The struggling figure of their foe spun end over end as the lightnings faded and fell away from it. The young mage seemed frozen, half-in and half-out of bat shape, bright eyes staring at them and brighter fangs gaping, as Elminster's magic whirled the attacker's body around and around. "Aye, I like thee better in half-shape," Elminster told the creature serenely, making a plucking motion with one hand.

The bat-thing abruptly broke out of its tumbling and seemed to leap across the air between them, directly at the Old Mage.

Sharantyr swallowed and rose up into its path, face set and blade extended. The bat-thing rushed forward as she held out her bright sword firmly in both hands. With a helpless, howling whimper, it impaled itself on her steel.

Shar staggered at the impact, icy blood drenching her hands, and stared in sudden alarm as the darkness and weight faded away from around her blade, taken to some other place by magic that flickered and tore at her, leaving her with a confused impression of shadows, watching malevolence, and a cold, dark somewhere filled with strange monstrous beings.

Someone said coldly, "Now do you see, Taernil?" but the reply, if there was one, was whirled away in a rising whistling, the noise of mournful, misty shadows streaming around and past her.

Sharantyr felt the magic that had taken the bat-thing trembling through her. She stared at her bare blade and unmarked hands for a dazed moment before a firm hand encircled her arm above the elbow and an all-too-familiar voice rasped, "Did ye or did ye not hear me to tell thee to put thy blade away, lass?"

Sharantyr shook her head to clear the whirling shadows from it and gasped, "Who… what was that?"

" What' is right, Shar. A Malaugrym mage, young and careless with his power." Then the voice sharpened. "A fine useful pair the two of ye are! Puffing up here just a breath or six too late, as usual."

Belkram and Itharr plunged to a halt, breathing hard, and exchanged an exasperated look. "That's… our job," Itharr gasped. "Rushing in… we're Harpers, remember?"

Elminster snorted once more. "So am I, young and brainless one," he reminded them all none too gently. "And d'ye see me running about the landscape like a scared hare, trampling the crops and looking generally ridiculous?"

"No," Belkram replied bravely, "but I'm sure if we were a thousand years or so older than we are, we'd have seen you doing just that… probably with a maid or two fleeing in front of you and an angry father or two in hot pursuit at your heels."